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by ShipwreckedMind



Category: Twenty One Pilots, Tyler Joseph - Fandom, josh dun - Fandom
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-20 22:36:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShipwreckedMind/pseuds/ShipwreckedMind
Summary: Before the famous duo that became twenty one pilots, there was just a boy alone in his basement- until he wasn't.





	1. One

"Okay, hear me out," Catalina says, pointing a mozzarella stick at me from across the bed. "You call him up, tell him he can go screw himself, leave all of his stuff out in the rain, and change your locks. There's nothing he can do about it." She sits back, clearly pleased with herself. 

I roll my eyes. "Cat. We're seventeen. I can't 'change the locks,' and he doesn't even have a key."

"Hey, I'm just trying to be supportive here," Cat shrugs, taking a big bite of the cheese stick.

"No, you're trying to be dramatic," I say with a crooked smile. "Prescott's not that bad. And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a line from your script?"

"Fine, you got me," she sighs, throwing her hands up. We look at each other in silence for a second before bursting out laughing. Her smile quickly fades. "Seriously though, Ruby, you've gotta break up with him."

My frown quickly reappears. I look down and fiddle with my sleeve. 

"Hey," Cat reaches out and places a hand on my knee. "Girl, I'm worried about you. Prescott- he's bad news. And I don't like the way he talks to you."

I take a deep breath and hold it, trying to keep myself from saying everything I want to. 

"Ruby, come on," Catalina snaps her fingers inches from my face. I coil back, caught off guard. She looks at me strangely. "What is with you? You've been acting all. . . weird lately."

I look down again but remain silent. 

Cat sighs. "Okay, fine. You know where to find me if you ever decide to talk." Without another word, she gathers up her stuff and leaves, closing the door to my bedroom behind her. 

I curl up into a ball toward the top of my bed. Tucking my knees up to my chest, I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing for Cat to come back, wishing she could just read my mind and hear what I'm trying to say. 

She's right, I do need to break up with Prescott. But how am I supposed to do that when I'm too scared to even tell him I disagree with his choice for dinner?

A shrill voice rips through the silence, causing me to jump about a foot, and knee myself in the face. "Ruby? It's dinner time!" My mom hollers. 

"Coming, Mom!" I groan as I sit up, rubbing my chin. A quick glance in the mirror confirms my suspicions- there's already a bruise forming. I sigh and pull down my sleeves over my hands. I clomp down the stairs, almost running into my brother on the way out. 

"Watch it, Rube," Daniel grumbles, catching me before I fall. 

"Sorry," I say softly, rubbing my arm and hurrying down the stairs. 

I manage to make it the rest of the way to the dinner table in one piece. Daniel and I quickly slide into our seats, just as Mom sets the carbonara down on the table. Daniel reaches up to dig in, but Mom swats his hand away. "Nuh uh, you know perfectly well that we say grace in this family before eating!" She snips. 

Danny slumps down in his seat and sighs. "Can we hurry up then? I'm starving."

Mom raises an eyebrow at him before bowing her head, hands folded on the table in front of her. "Thank you Father for this food, and our many other blessings, Amen." She looks up. "Now you may eat."

Daniel eagerly digs his fork in the pasta, scooping a big glob of it onto his plate. I watch him with a faint expression of disgust. 

"Ruby, I thought Cat was staying for dinner?" Mom asks, carefully but firmly removing the bowl of carbonara from Danny's hand. 

I give a small shrug. 

"How insightful, thank you." She rolls her eyes, handing me the bowl.

I sigh, dishing a small portion of pasta onto my plate. "She went home. Said she had a lot of homework or something."

Dad takes the bowl from me the second I'm done. "Well, let her know she's always welcome here if she wants to stay."

"They've been friends for, like, eight years, Dad, I think she knows that by now," Daniel says, his mouth stuffed.

"Don't talk with your mouth full," Mom scolds. 

I sigh again, and continue to sit in silence. 

"Ruby, honey, eat your food," she says, scooping some salad onto her plate. 

"I'm not hungry."

She raises an eyebrow at me. "Ask me if I care."

I slump down in my seat, crossing my arms over my stomach. 

Mom gives a pointed look at my dad, who is clearly too absorbed in his food to notice the conversation happening around him. She kicks him under the table, causing him to jump. 

"Oh, yeah, uh, listen to your mother," he mumbles, mouth full, before going back to digging in. 

She stares at him in mock disgust. "You're just as bad as Daniel. Fine, Ruby, go finish your homework, please."

I gratefully stand up from the table and start to carry my plate into the kitchen. 

Daniel makes a strangled choking sound behind me and grabs for my plate. I roll my eyes and dump its contents onto his. "Fank you!" He manages. 

Mom and I exchange looks. She laughs and waves me away. "Quick, escape while you can."

I stumble up the stairs to my room, leaving my family happily chewing at the dinner table. 

My door closes loudly, cutting their laughter short. I glance at the clock, ignoring the painful gnaws of hunger in my stomach. 2100. I figure I might as well head to bed early; school starts tomorrow, anyway. I take a quick shower and pull on my pajamas. I hear the rest of my family finish dinner just as I'm climbing into bed. Daniel comes up the stairs loudly and slams his door. Music starts playing faintly from his room, but I'm too tired to get up and tell him to shut it off. 

Slowly, the commotion of the house dies down as one by one, my family members start to fall asleep. Eventually, I'm the only one left awake, watching my ceiling fan turn round and round and round. 


	2. Two ~ 4:05

I toss and turn all night. I'm not nervous. I just can't sleep. I watch the trees outside the window waving their arms in the faint summer breeze until my memories all blend together. 

Eventually, when clouds roll over the moon, casting strange shadows across my yard, I roll over to look at the clock. My vision is blurred, but I can just make out the red numbers on the face. 4:05. I have to wake up in two hours to the minute. 

I close my eyes and lie there, hoping that if I pretend long enough, eventually I'll fall asleep.

Two hours later, however, my alarm goes off. I groan and sit up to turn it off. I clumsily climb out of bed and make my way to my closet. Rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, I pull out a pair of shorts, a faded Killers shirt, and a pair of Vans. I change quickly, then stumble down the stairs. 

"Who's excited for their first daayy!" Mom chirps happily from the kitchen. 

I say nothing in response and instead sit down at the table, burying my face in my arms. I squeeze my eyes closed as I hear Daniel making his way towards us, hoping that I'll wake back up in bed with another month of summer left. 

"Head off the table, Ruby!" Mom snips, tapping me on the shoulder. I sit up slowly and rub my eyes, my vision clearing. She plops a massive pile of waffles down in front of the two of us. "Eat up, you've got to be at school in half an hour."

True to character, Danny immediately digs in, drowning his waffles in syrup and strawberries. 

I slowly cut mine into little bits, spreading it out across the plate, but my stomach feels too tight to eat anything. 

After a few minutes, Mom comes over to grab our dishes. She frowns when she sees my plate. "Ruby, honey, you hardly touched your waffle. You didn't eat last night either. Are you feeling okay?" 

I nod. "I'm fine, just not hungry."

"Well, I'm sure you'll be hungry later, so I packed a lunch for you two today," she hands me and Daniel a paper bag. 

Danny glances down at his watch as he stuffs his lunch into his backpack. "We've gotta get out front, Mike should be here any minute now." Mike, Danny's beset friend, lives five minutes away and graciously volunteered to drive us to school since we don't have a reliable car to take us. Unfortunately, he's a bit of a crazy driver, but it beats walking two miles early in the morning. 

"Okay, well, give me a kiss before you go! It's my babies' last first day of school," she smiles, eyes already welling with tears. She envelopes us in a bone crushing hug, squeezing our faces together. "I love you both, have fun!"

We both mumble a goodbye as the door closes behind us. Just as I turn my key in the lock, Mike's beat up Volvo whips around the corner. The muffled sounds of his music can be heard even from all the way down the street. 

Daniel gives me a look as we walk to the curb and climb in. 

Mike twists around in his seat and grins at me. "Who's excited for the first day of senior year?" He shouts. 

I stare at him in silence. Mike's a great guy, don't get me wrong, but he's a little much this early in the morning. 

"It's like talking to a brick wall, dude," he shakes his head and peels off down the street, sending me flying into the door on the other side. 

"Little warning next time, maybe?" I grumble, sitting up and buckling my seatbelt. 

"Yooo, she speaks!" Mike cries triumphantly, grinning at Danny. 

I roll my eyes and stare out the window. Our school is only two miles away, but it's a very long two miles, especially in the winter. We pull up into the school parking lot and Mike rolls to a stop in his designated parking spot in the corner. 

I say a quick thank you before jumping out, leaving Daniel and Mike to play whatever trashy music they want before school starts.

The August sun is already starting to beat down on the pavement, and as I walk through the doors, I'm reminded of how amazing air conditioning truly is. 

I head to my locker and spin the combination. I've got pretty easy classes all day today, but tomorrow has my only difficult class- AP Statistics- and even that one isn't too hard. It does however, require a lot of textbooks.

After a second of juggling books around to make room for my lunch, I feel someone standing right behind me. I turn my head slowly and see a boy with bright pink hair standing a little too close behind me. 

"Can I help you?" I ask, moderately annoyed. 

"That's my locker," he grins, pointing to the one right above mine. 

I sigh. "I'm almost done, sorry."

"That's okay." He stands next to me and opens his locker. I lean back so the door doesn't smack me in the head. "Are you new? I've never seen you before. I would've remembered," he winks, shoving a binder in his backpack.

"I've been going here since I was a freshmen. Good try though."

"No way? Bummer we didn't meet earlier."

Finally fitting the last book in my bag, I close my locker with a satisfying slam. "Yeah, real bummer. Bye." 

"My name's Josh, by the way!" He calls as I walk away. I give a lazy thumbs up over my shoulder and continue on my way.

~

My first class is biomedical sciences. When I walk in, I see a seating chart already posted on the board. I hold back a sigh and search for my name. Thankfully, I'm in the back of the class. After settling in, I begin to look at the other names on the board, hoping Cat will be here. The name next to mine jumps out immediately. 

_Dun, Joshua. _

Where do I know that name from? It seems familiar, but I certainly don't have any friends named Josh. Prescott, my boyfriend, doesn't like it when I even talk to other guys, let alone befriend them.

The answer to my question walks in and sits down next to me. It's the pink-haired boy with his locker above me. He smiles a little, putting his backpack on the desk. "Remember me?" 

"How could I forget?" I retort. "Your hair is aggressively pink."

He laughs and leans back in his chair. "That's fair."

I roll my eyes and pull out my notebook. The teacher keeps the chart on the board until the bell rings, giving me the opportunity to scrutinize the board once more. Prescott's name is nowhere to be seen. I can't help it, I let out a small sigh of relief. 

"Alright class, my name is Mrs. Wolf, and I'll be your Biomedical Sciences teacher this year," Mrs. Wolf says from the front of the room, shutting off the projector. 

A boy in the opposite corner of the room howls when she says her name. Everyone giggles as Mrs. Wolf rolls her eyes. 

"Yes, very creative, certainly don't hear that every year." She crosses her arms. "What's your name?"

"Teo Johnson," the boy answers, fist bumping his friends with a grin. 

"I cannot express how much I hate that kid," Josh mutters as Mrs. Wolf goes off on Teo. 

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. "You seem like the kind of guy who would be friends with him."

He raises an eyebrow but doesn't say anything. 

As the class goes on, I quickly come to realize the majority of the other students are just like Teo- dumb, loud, and disrespectful. Despite her motherly appearance, Mrs. Wolf does a relatively good job at managing them. 

Every once and a while, I look over at Josh. He drums on his leg non-stop the whole period, tapping his fingers to a beat only he can hear. He look like he's in as much pain because of our classmates as I am. 

When the class ends, he bolts out of the classroom before the bell has even finished ringing. 

"Bye then," I say to myself. My stomach growls, but I ignore it. 

~ 

One uneventful literature class later, the lunch bell rings, releasing us temporarily to the freedom of food. I push through the hallways toward my locker, then make my way to the small grove of trees in the side yard of the school. Cat and I have been eating there since freshmen year, and neither of us seem to be planning on changing that pattern now. 

When I open the doors, I see Cat already laying down on the grass, her picnic blanket spread out beneath her in the shade. 

"I see you're bringing back the blanket," I say as I walk up. 

She cracks open an eye and smiles. "What can I say, I'm not much of a fan of getting grass all over my butt every day."

"Fair enough," I smile, sitting down next to her. 

Clearly, the awkwardness of her leaving yesterday is forgotten. 

Cat sits up and pulls out her lunch. She always has delicious homemade food, and a lot of it. Her dad is from Spain, and her mom is from the Philippines, and they both love to cook. Compared to my usual boring sandwich or slice of pizza, her paella and adobo seem like a gourmet meal- which I guess they are, to me at least. 

"What do you have today?" I ask as she opens her thermos. A delicious scent spills over us instantly. My stomach rumbles loudly. 

"Chicken inasal," she grins. "Want a bite?"

I shake my head. "It's all yours; my mom made me a lunch today. Thanks though." I take my paper bag out of my backpack and see an apple with some leftover carbonara. My stomach turns at the thought of eating it, but I bring it out anyway. Cat might start to get suspicious if I didn't eat my favorite dish. 

"So, have you seen Pres yet?" She asks, digging in. 

I shake my head again, looking down. "No. He's not in any of my classes so far. Granted, we've only had two so far. . ." My voice trails off when I see him push open the doors to the school yard. 

Cat follows my gaze and sighs. "Speak of the devil."

"Maybe he won't see us?" I say. 

He searches the schoolyard, eyes scanning the trees before finally falling on us. "Ruby!" He exclaims, walking toward us. "I've been looking all over for you."

"We sit here every day," Cat says shortly. 

He ignores her. "Why didn't you come say hi to me? Some guys didn't believe me that I was dating the hottest girl in the school. You know I like showing you off."

To anyone else, that might've been a compliment. But to me, it sounded more threatening than anything else. An uneasy feeling settles in my chest. "Sorry," I mutter, not looking at him. 

He scowls. "Whatever. Let's go," he starts to walk away. I sigh and start to follow him, but Cat grabs my arm. 

"Don't go with him, Ruby," she whispers. "You don't have to do everything he says. Tell him you're staying." 

I don't move. 

"Ruby, please."

"Ruby!" Prescott snaps. 

My heart beat quickens. 

Catalina stares at me, waiting for me to move. "Ay," she mutters, standing up. "Shove off, Prescott. Ruby wants to stay here, and you can clearly see that. I'm not really in the mood to fight you, but we both know I could win." She crosses her arms. "So, if you don't mind- actually, I don't give a crap if you care or not- Ruby's staying here." She finishes with her trademark smirk, which makes her look like Natalie Dormer. 

Prescott glares at her. "I'll see you after school, Ruby," he snaps, stalking back off to the school.

My heart swells with pride and gratitude for my best friend, but it quickly falters when I hear Prescott's words. 

Cat turns to me. "Next time it's your turn," she say simply as the lunch bell rings. 


End file.
